Heartbreaking

Few will be able to read Allen and Susan Bergson's story and retain their composure. It is difficult to imagine the depth of their grief - compounded by the discovery after nearly four decades that the information they had been given about their son's burial was, to quote another victim of the misinformation, 'a pack of lies'.

In truth we do not know, and probably never will, if they were deliberately lied to or if the United Synagogue simply made a mistake - and repeated the mistake for many years, every time a baby had to be buried less than 30 days after its birth. Things are very different today, and the barbarity of parents being told that they cannot hold a burial for the child and cannot know where he or she is buried, has gone - let alone having a baby buried with an anonymous mother. The US today cannot be held responsible for the actions of its former employees. Indeed it deserves praise for its openness when confronted with the facts of what happened, for issuing a full apology, and for launching an immediate investigation into what happened. We now await its findings.